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Food doesn’t just help restore the body; food and the creation of food restores my mind and soul.

Last week, I made pitta crisps for no other reason than to create something. My busy hands creating something of beauty and use is therapy for my soul. I’ve known the ebb and flow of life and death, of eustress and distress – good stress and bad stress. I’ve found that stress in my life can lead to a debilitation of vitality and creativity. Or it forces from the depths of me a need to create for creativity’s sake: stress is a conduit that can lead to creativity. This season of life has led me to the kitchen to create. I have discovered a love affair with food that I’ve always had, but never understood.

Food isn’t just something that keeps my physical body alive. It keeps an element of me breathing, sighing, and laughing, each emotion invisible within the beauty of the creation of food, taste, design, and combinations of ingredients and colours. Sorrow is eclipsed by the beauty of aesthetics and taste; joy and laughter magnified in the flavour and vibrancy it encapsulates. Various forms of creativity have always been a place for me to express my processings of both the life I live and the reflections of the life I observe around me – drawing, painting, printmaking, music, photography, and now, culinary arts.

There is a creative element to all of us – the need to both express and reflect – creative stories of our own telling and retelling. And, food is incredibly social! For the first time, I am not merely creating for my own processing and emotion. Sharing my sorrow or frustrations within a bite to eat lessens the load and soothes my body and soul. And how much more contagious is joy and happiness than when shared over a dinner, whether with one other person or over an evening dinner party? My journey thus far has led me to food: to create, enjoy, and, for the first time in my creative pursuits, to invite others to partake and enjoy this creativity with me.

This is a great dish to enjoy in the dead of winter or in the cool breeze of lazy summer nights. It is a hearty, warming recipe that is sure to fill your belly on a cool night, but is still light and fresh enough to invite dreams of the approaching springtime. My husband and I are not big fans of most curries, but this one was so fresh and citrus-y that it has easily become a favourite and a great go-to dinner when we need a quick option to pull together. And our three-year-old son loves it! Our five-year-old daughter? Not so much, but only because she thinks mussels look weird. It’s a ¾ family favourite then. We give her some cod with the curry sauce and she likes that. More on that below.

*Warning!* I like to blend my own spice mixes… But without “traditional” forms of measuring. To be totally honest, I’m not good at following instructions or measuring accurately. I call it creative license. I make my own curry powder mix that my family likes. In the recipe below, you can use the pre-mixed spices and seasonings, or at the bottom of the recipe, find my spice ingredient list and try that. Whatever mix you choose to use, this is a delicious, healthy dinner that can be pulled together in 45 minutes.

Ingredients

2 tbsp oil [rapeseed, coconut, ghee…any good fat you desire!]

1 red onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce*

2 tsp curry powder*

2 limes, diced

1 tbsp coconut oil

400g coconut milk

2 tbsp coconut butter [some supermarkets sell it as Block Coconut if you can’t find coconut butter or don’t make it yourself]

150g mangetout

150g broccoli florets

150g cauliflower florets

250g raw, peeled king prawns

250g mixed seafood [we use squid, mussels, & mini prawns]

400g dry green lentils

coriander leaves to garnish [optional]

Method

Rinse and drain 400g green lentils. Cover with water [water should be 5cm above the surface of the lentils] and cook for 45 minutes or until tender. Skim off any foam that might rise to the surface and top up the water as needed. When cooked, drain, rinse, and set aside.

While the lentils are cooking, heat oil in a large pan. Sauté onion until soft; add garlic, chilli, coconut butter, and curry seasoning. Stir to blend and cook for a few minutes.

Blend the lime, coconut oil, and coconut milk in a blender until as smooth as possible. Add to the pan and stir.

Add the seafood and cauliflower; stir, cover, and simmer for 7 minutes or until prawns are pink and cooked through.

Add mangetout and broccoli. Cook to desired crispness – I prefer very crisp, so I cook anywhere between 45 seconds and 1:30, depending on the size of the florets.

Spoon lentils onto a serving dish and top with the curry and garnish with fresh coriander.

Enjoy!

Additional Notes|Substitutions

A Mojito is lovely with this!

The last time we made this, we bulked up the curry with two fillets of cod thrown into the pan 10 minutes before serving. It broke up nicely in the milky sauce, while still being firm enough to retain its shape and texture. If you don’t like mixed seafood, you can easily substitute with nice, firm fish fillets.

Rice with a bit of desiccated coconut and coriander is delicious with this! We don’t make rice often, as we are doing low-carb eating.

Curry powder substitute: mix these ingredients in decreasing quantities. I estimate every time, based on how much I like the spices and what the other flavours in the recipe are. It’s not very exact, but then again, I’m not a very exact person. Remember, more of the first ingredient and decreasing to the smallest amount of the last ingredient.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and it’s a great idea to start looking up recipes to cook for your date. But in the throes of [cooking] passion, it’s easy to over-season a new dish with a bit too much spice.
But, there is a way of ensuring there isn’t too much heat in the kitchen so you can get hot and heavy outside of the kitchen.

If you have over-spiced your dish and your love life is depending upon the success of this one meal, don’t panic! Stop and think. If you can identify the heated culprit, you can easily tone down the spice to a palatable taste and save Valentine’s Day! I mean, your dinner. You have three main options to help tone down the heat: water, fats/oils, and alcohol. Sugar and other ingredients can help to distract from the heat, but won’t necessarily lessen the heat. Find your overindulging ingredient below and get fixing!

Black Pepper: This is one of the mildest and most common spice ingredients. Water and fat won’t do much to touch the heat here. Try a splash of alcohol and you will save the pepper flavour, but lose the burning heat.

Ginger, Onions & Garlic: These foods produce a spicy “bite” that is less heat-hot and more stingingly hot. The best way to soften the burn of too much ginger is to cook it down. Water will help but will also dilute any other flavours already in your dish, so be prepared to season again, but do so carefully and very slowly! Cook down the ginger until your desired taste then build up your flavours again.
Onion & garlic break down the best in a combination of both alcohol and fats. Add a splash of alcohol and a drizzle of oil, and that roaring bite will soften to become a complex, delicate blend of flavours that will compliment your dish well.

HOT Peppers! These are the big mambas! Their heat is quick and strong. If you’ve ever had a momentary lapse in judgement, being egged on by ego and friends, and have eaten a hot chilli on a dare, you’ll attest that the jug of water you gulped down after did absolutely not a thing to touch the unrelenting venom coursing through your digestive tract. It’s the same in cooking. Water will dilute your sauce, but preserve the spicy fire. Oil fats are best for lessening this heat, either in whole pepper form or the dried, powdered version. Sugar can also help to distract from the ear-burning heat, but fat will actually take a bit of the heat away. These peppers are make or break for your Valentine’s dinner! The right amount of heat is exhilarating and satisfying; too much and the date is over for both of you to spend the rest of the night on the toilet with a bottle of Rennie’s.

So that’s it! The fate of your future love life lies in your kitchen… And if it’s beyond repair, bin it all and order in a Chinese!

With busy schedules and cheap, convenient food, lunchtime can quickly become less of a meal and more of filling a need. If you aren’t able to carve out a bit of time to stop and enjoy a bite to eat, then, at the very least, I can help with inspiring some healthy, quick, and easy lunchtime options.

All of these ideas can be adapted to meat-free by substituting with legumes, pulses, and/or seeds and nuts to up your proteins to keep you energised and active until dinner time!

Salad Topper
This is the usual lunch menu Monday through Friday at our house. We sandwich a spoonful or two of this mix between fresh kale or spinach and some fresh fish and dress with cracked pepper, extra virgin olive oil [EVOO], and lemon juice.
Twice per week, chop, grate, and shred carrots, cucumber, cooked beetroot, scallion, avocado, celery, tomatoes, bell peppers, olives, pickles, mushroom, broccoli, radish……You get the idea. Any and all veg you have on hand can be tossed into a large bowl. The key to this salad is the variety of taste, colour, and texture. Get a good mix in there, add some seeds, nuts, and even some dried or fresh fruit like oranges, apple slices, grapes, or berries. Because of the variance of what’s in the fridge, this salad is anything but monotonous. Be adventurous and treat your taste buds to a wonderful variety!
And if you have a little extra time, try slow roasting some mushrooms, carrot batons, broccoli, red onion, garlic cloves, and pepper and add a few of those in to your salad for some complexity of flavour and texture. The onion and garlic especially become sweet and delicious – not at all sharp and pungent like when eaten raw! Roast the garlic it in its paper drizzled in oil and pop it out once cooked. It won’t stink you up like raw garlic does!

Raw Bento Box
This lunch is perfect for busy workdays, commuting, lazy weekends, lunch with friends, picnics, kids lunches….It’s pretty much perfect all the time and every where!
Take your favourite fruit and veg and slice, dice, and chop. Compartmentalising the box looks neat and beautiful and satisfies those of us with OCD helps keep the food pieces separate so you can grab and go, or makes it perfect for sharing. Bring some boiled eggs, nuts, cheese, or charcuterie to spice things up a bit. We sometimes add in some pittas or crispbread and mash an avocado to use as a creamy spread and then top with various veggies and cheeses.

Tuna Salad
Mash an avocado with lemon juice and pepper. Chop and add in cooked beets, carrots, bell pepper, onion, celery, tomato, broccoli, edamame, coriander, chilli pepper, and mix. Top with baby sprouts and enjoy!
Drizzle with rapeseed oil or EVOO to loosen the mixture, or add a dollop of mayonnaise if you prefer it more creamy. Substitute in a plethora of mixed beans, quinoa, and legumes for tuna to make this a meat-free lunchtime option.

These are just three of the raw lunches we rotate here. We like these because they can be made in advance, are low prep time, and are so tasty and healthy! So, even if you can’t stop and nurture your soul during the day with a time of rest while you eat, now you can eat least nourish your body in a short amount of time!

I got this book as a Christmas gift from my brother in law and it was one of the best gifts I got this year! It is a treasure trove of interesting foodie information and beautiful design. And one of the ramifications of growing up as the daughter of a writer and all-around creative is that any book I would even consider picking up must be beautiful in both content and aesthetics.

This book is just that.

The perfect shape + the perfect sauce = the geometry of pasta

Written by Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy & published by Boxtree in 2010, I couldn’t help but wonder where has this book been for the past six years??The Geometry of Pasta has the visually aesthetic appearance of a monochromatic cover that evokes a great expectancy of beautiful and simple content… and it does not disappoint!

The book hits all the basics that you’d expect in a food book – recipes for pasta dough, sauce recipes, and how much salt to add to boiling water. Hildebrand and Kenedy then proceed to take the reader on an exploration of various pasta forms, where they originated from, how to make the pasta, and accompanying sauces that not only dress the pasta suitably, but make the dish exceptional. The information is punctuated beautifully with simple, yet beautiful black and white graphic illustrations with just the right amount of detail and simplification of form.

The Geometry of Pasta is the perfect fusion of functionality and the art of both food and design.